


Dreams

by Midnite_Republic



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I'm so sorry, Kakashi Gaiden, Uchiha Madara (mentioned) - Freeform, Zetsu (mentioned) - Freeform, but written as gen, how did this happen?, possible flavouring of ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15559173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnite_Republic/pseuds/Midnite_Republic
Summary: Obito dreams (remembers) things differently in the dark of the cave.





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry, I have no idea where this came from.  
> My first Naruto fic (because I like to forget that weird drabble had anything to do with me), but Obito was one of my fav characters since he was introduced, so I couldn't resist (even though I can't write ships to save my life).

Obito dreamed ( _remembered_ ) in the dark of the cave, nursing his broken body and spirit.

It had to be a dream, that wasn’t how they were, how they felt. It was all ever so slightly off from what he knew to be true. But how he wished when he woke that it had been how it was, maybe it would have saved them, both him and _his_ Rin. 

(He didn’t question the differences. Why he may be dreaming of feeling emotions so different from what he knew he had felt? That there was any reason at all for it, other than a wish for it to have been different.)

But that was a useless wish. One he started to regret as he slowly healed, as he continued to dream. He came to wish that he wouldn’t dream of such things as he woke from a healing sleep, saline soaking his cheeks and pillow. Or that he could still have the comfort of the dreams in his sleep but forgot the contents as his remaining eye reopened

(He didn’t think to question why Madara and Zetsu were both able to help clarify what actually happened when the dreams became so vivid he was no longer able to tell the difference between them and reality. How they could know exactly what he was feeling at any point in time with such accuracy when he knew they shouldn’t know what happened without him having told them at some point. Something he didn’t remember doing.)

* * *

The dream went something like this.

He was running through the trees, late again. He had stopped to help an old lady with directions and her luggage, his brain supplied. His actions and irritated eyes had once again left him hoping he might just have enough time to get to the meeting point.

He had a vague feeling as he ran that he had forgotten something, but he couldn’t slow down in the hope that he would remember.

The clearing that was their team’s meeting point opened up before him and he took a flying leap, skidding onto his face as he landed. Another common occurrence as he attempted once again to be on time.

“You’re late.” The familiar impassive tone came from over his head as he picked himself up. He looked up at the gray-haired boy standing over him, before returning resettling himself, tuning out the familiar debate about his lateness being against the ninja rules between Bakashi and their sensei. Tuning back into the conversation just as the as the other boy turned away and muttered awkwardly, “this is a very important day for me.” ( _No, he hadn’t been awkward about it. It had been an arrogant reminder about his achievement over him and Rin._ A dark voice in his head insisted.)

“Yeah, it is.” Rin muttered quietly, sweetly, apologetic about whatever it was that they were ignoring in favour of the usual debate. ( _No, she had been fawning, admiring Bakashi’s genius._ The voice insisted again.)

“What was it again?” Obito asked confused as to what they meant, the feeling that he had forgotten something stronger now.

“Today is the day from which Kakashi officially a jounin, just like me.” Sensei reminded him. ( _No, it wasn’t right, he had been a lot more harsh about saying that. Like Obito should have been able to be up to that standard too. Like he was a disappointment not to have remember this already._ ) Obito finally started to put together what he had forgotten as Sensei went on to explain that the team was splitting for the mission. Sensei on his own, them under Bakashi.

“I told you before, to get Kakashi a present.” Rin’s lightly chastising tone ( _wrong, it had been berating_ ) makes him think back on the tessen he had bought and painstakingly painted the Hatake clan crest onto for this exact reason. The one he had accidently left on his kitchen table as he rushed his way out the door that morning. 

( _What? Why would he have got the bastard a fan? Fans were only used as special gifts for the Uchiha. Why would he have done that for someone who had only ever been an arrogant asshole?_ )

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” He said, embarrassed that he had done all that work without the evidence of the fan to back up that he had done it. He couldn’t say now that he had left behind the present he had worked on hard on, they wouldn’t believe him. ( _No, he had really not been listening to more fawning over the asshole._ ) Embarrassment that rose as he watched Sensei and Rin hand over their gifts ( _of course Rin had put so much thought into her crushes gift_ ), until the gray-haired bastard just put his hand out, expectantly.

“I told you, I wasn’t listening.” Obito yelled, embarrassment at his hard work being left behind, not being able to give his teammate the gift he had put so much thought into, and anger at the presumption in his actions mixing in his gut. “I didn’t get you anything.”

The dream swam through time like it was trying to ignore the familiar ongoing argument about who was better. Like it couldn’t find a way to make him feel any differently about those, or the explanation of their missions, either the frontline or the bridge.

It sped along until the fight with the Iwa nin and his kage bushin. Blurring back into focus as Bakashi was showing off his new chirping lightning jutsu. The one that Obito was sure he had never seen him use before, and a bushin started targeting Obito.

Obito froze. (He always froze at that point, no matter how many times he replayed that moment, both in his memories and in the dreams. He was still just a kid, without access to his family's greatest strength.)

“Don’t be careless!” Sensei yelled back at him as he jumped forward and dispelled the clone, worry in his eye as he looked back. ( _It hadn’t been worry, it had been disappointment. Or annoyance at having to protect the useless chunin._ The voice insisted again.)

“Y...yes.” Obito could only stutter at the speed of events.

The dream sped up again, as Sensei intervened with Bakashi, then dealt with the real Iwa nin while Rin worked on their new “commander”. Through the falling back to camp for the night, the conversation about the White Fang and the morning separation. 

Beginning to slow again during the battle with the two Iwa nin, as he and Bakashi worked as a team against the one they had seen until realising the bastard wasn’t alone. 

He distinctly hears the cry of “wait” from beside him as they disappear with Rin ( _no, he had been silent_ ), but he ignores it as ever as he attempts to go after them and is stopped by the gray-haired asshole.

“What the hell are you saying?” Obito yelled at the bastard who was keeping him from immediately going after his captive best friend ( _soulmate_ ). “Don’t you get it?”

“Yeah.” He says in reply, looking down as if he regrets that he has to make this decision. He then looks up to say decisively. “The two of us will resume the mission.” ( _Not right, not right. He had been cold about it, not regretful. The rules, the rules._ ) 

“But what about Rin?” Obito was adamant that they should help his friend, their teammate ( _his soulmate_ ).

“Leave Rin for now,” Kakashi said calmly, logically. “The enemy wants to know our mission, they won’t kill her yet. As a medic, she’s a valuable prisoner so long as she helps heal their casualties. But if they find out our goal they’ll go straight to the bridge to protect it.” ( _He didn’t say anything like that, as if they would come back after the mission to get her._ )

“But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee her safety,” Obito argued. “What if they don’t think it out like that? Rin is more important than the mission.” The team was what was important. ( _Rin was what was important._ )

“As a shinobi, sometimes it is needed to sacrifice your teammates for the mission. It’s a _law_ ,” Bakashi argues back, tone slightly regretful, but still calm. “If the mission fails, war will continue and more sacrifices will occur.” ( _His tone didn’t have any of these soft emotions in it when he said that, just coldness with a tinge of annoyance at having this conversation at all._ )

“You can’t know that!” Obito yelled back. “And even if you did, how can you throw away a companion that has been with you all this time. She’s healed us every time we needed it, if she weren’t there we would have been dead long ago.”

“That was Rin’s duty.” Kakashi muttered, as if he was trying to convince himself of the truth of what he had said. ( _That definitely hadn’t been how he really said it._ )

Obito didn’t even try to stop his fist flying at the bastard. (It felt good to land that punch in any version of that conversation.) 

“I definitely can’t stand you!” he yelled as the bastard staggered.

“It doesn’t matter if you can stand me or not,” He said as he regained balance. “I am still your commander and you have to obey my decisions.” 

There was something else that happened here, he remembers, something said that was significant to their later choices, but it blurs again until he takes his leave of his commander.

“If we can’t come to an agreement about our nindos, I’ll go rescue Rin myself.” The words come out of his mouth bitter, but not as much as Bakashi’s next words.

“You don’t understand anything about those that don’t follow the rules…”

“I believe that the White Fang was a true hero.” Obito says over him as he walks away. Not just to let him know that he knew what happened to his father, but that he understood exactly what happened. He continued, half turning to ensure that the bastard was listening. “Of course, those that break the rules are trash, but those that don’t care about their companions are worse than trash.” 

The events of the dream ( _memory_ ) speed up again. Slowing at the point he realised the Iwa nin had realised he was there and had snuck up on him, just before Kakashi jumped down swinging his tanto.

“Kakashi,” He said in shock. “Why?”

“Hah! I couldn’t leave it to a crybaby ninja like you, could I?” The gray-haired boy replied almost fondly. ( _No, it had been an arrogant statement that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything,_ the voice insisted.) 

( _It didn’t matter how he had said it,_ a tiny, almost silenced part of Obito reminded him, _he had still come back for them._ )

He had said that emotions were unnecessary things. That carrying momentos was useless, but he had carried his father’s blade for as long as they had been on a team together, and rarely used it. 

Then he had lost his eye to protect Obito and Obito had gained his Sharingan to protect him. They had worked as a team, they were a team. ( _That can’t have really been how it happened. He had gained his Sharingan to help save Rin. To protect her, his world, not the bastard who had never truly been his friend._ The voice insisted, slightly weaker here than before as the dream moved through the perfect teamwork of the start of the fight with the last Iwa nin.)

Then came the doton cave-in, with Kakashi’s new blind spot leaving him vulnerable to getting clipped and Obito’s last minute action to save him that was almost fatal to himself instead. ( _The wrong choice,_ the voice berated him. _Look at what came of it all._ What did it mean what came of it?)

Kakashi tried to lift the massive boulder off of him as soon as he realised what had happened. Only stopping when Obito convinced him it wouldn’t do any good, even if he could lift it.

“Damn it!” He yelled hitting the ground and shaking. “If I had only gone with you from the beginning, something like this wouldn’t have happened! What kind of commander…? What kind of jonin am I?” ( _No! This couldn’t be right,_ the voice yelled in his head. _Kakashi never showed any strong emotion like that, like he cared about what happened to them._ )

“Hey...no,” He started shakily, reaching out to his teammates. “Forget it. I’m the only one...not to get you...a present...right?” He thought about the tessen still sitting on his table, hoping that someone would pass it on to Kakashi when he got back to the village, but not wanting to admit to having got it after having been so adamant of having not gotten him anything earlier, and it would get in the way of his new idea. “I was thinking...and now..I’ve worked out...something that wouldn’t...be useless baggage.”

Both Rin and Kakashi looked down at him as he struggled to say everything he wanted to.

“My Sharingan.”

There was silence for a moment as they looked on in disbelief at the idea.

“Rin...can transplant it...into your damaged...eye.” He told them. “I’m...going to...die...but I can...be your eye...and see the...future.”

The transplant was relatively smooth, then there was darkness, a familiar hand in his as a crash occurred and Kakashi was no longer in the cave. But Obito had the strength to make one last request.

“Kakashi...take care...of Rin.”

“Right,” was the strong, decisive reply as he readied for the fight ahead of him. ( _A promise to him, one the gray-haired bastard didn’t keep, did he._ )

When the fight was over there was only telling them to leave him. To get out before reinforcements came, but it was too late. The reinforcements were there with another doton cave-in. 

“Kakashi...even though we..finally became friends...I couldn’t admit it…even to Rin.” His last thought before the darkness of the rock closed over him. “I wanted...to be together with everyone longer.”

That was when he always woke in tears and remembered everything that had happened after. The breaking of Kakashi’s promise to protect Rin. Just as he was strong enough to finally be with them together again, to go home.

But that home had not been real, and even if it had been, it couldn’t be now Rin was gone.

* * *

In his dreams, Sensei was a kind and patient teacher. Willing to try to explain things in different ways if Obito didn’t get it the first time, even going so far to ask others to how to explain things when he got stuck. Not just the idiot who had left their team in the hands of an inexperienced jounin the day after the rigidity of said jounin’s worldview going against the freedom needed for the teamwork he so repeatedly lauded had been demonstrated.

Bakashi was a boy, just as he was, without the ability to show his emotions and was awkward with people. A boy that could have been a good friend if they had had the time to work through his many issues. Rather than the heartless bastard that cold-bloodedly killed the girl who adored him, who had been Obito’s world, who he had promised Obito he would protect.

Rin was his best friend, a close bond, his strongest even, but not the soulmate he remembers her as. (A slight loss maybe, but not enough of one to impact the importance of their relationship. Romantic love was not always the most superior love.) The woman he would have given anything to save, who he had been too slow to save, who he had watched as the boy he had given his greatest gift to had broken the last promise he had made to him.

If there was a choice between living in either the dreams or reality, Obito knows which he would prefer to live. But that wasn’t real, not yet.

Not until they completed Madara’s plan.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.  
> Comments (and kudos) make me smile :).  
> I'm over on Tumblr, but my [main blog](https://midniterepublic.tumblr.com/) is pretty random so if you want fanfic stuff, my [fanfic blog](https://midniterepfanwrites.tumblr.com/) is more organised.


End file.
